Dropped
by Underwater Owl
Summary: Mello, Matt and Near find another Death Note. Clearly, they have to tell L. This proves to be a lot harder than it sounds... but between the three of them? There's not much that could stop them. Hopefully. As long as they don't kill each other first.
1. Prologue

_Prologue_

There wasn't much to do in the realm of the Death Gods. The apples were bad, the scenery was barren, and the company was old and growing stale very, very fast. Some chose to watch the world of men. Some chose to wander.

Most chose to gamble.

Cards were the only thing there seemed to be plenty of these days, in fact, so the games were frequent and friendly. Rarely did anyone play for anything bigger than a few pieces of dried fruit. Some bones that were found on the ground. Sometimes petty physical feats; I win this round, you stand on your head for a week.

Most of the time.

With every rule there is an exception. Today, one of the card games was starting to draw something of a crowd. The shinigami whispered about it to each other, came closer, peered anxiously. It couldn't be.

Could it?

The final hands were played. Skulls high. Whispers of concern ripple out through the crowd, as the creature with the mammoth's tusks and the lion's mane throws something to the ground. The one across from it sneers, and bends to pick the notebook up.

One death note, won and played for. The new caretaker of the death note, who would rather gamble her immortality than live out life here, forever, rises to her feet and walks purposefully to the place she'll drop her note from.

The world of men is where all the sport is these days, after all. And Sighurd wants in to the game.


	2. From Above

From Above

"Shit," Mello snarls, and dives for Matt's gameboy, "will you stop that for just a minute?"

"No," says Matt, peaceably, and lifts the thing over his head, still playing even though Mello's in one of his moods and is still trying to snatch it from him.

"I'm talking to you about _important things _here," snarls Mello, trying to make a second grab for it. Technically, he's taller than Matt, but Matt somehow still manages to keep things out of his reach. The one time Mello asked how, Matt said 'Siblings. Practise.' And that was the end of that conversation.

No one in the orphanage talked about family much. This train of thought can't help but sober him up a little. His attempts to grab the gameboy away become less frantic, and consequentially, Matt starts talking.

Funny person, Matt. He starts talking _more _the less you hit him.

"You're not talking about _important things. _You're talking about Near. And how much you hate him. And how much he never shows any emotions. And how stupid his stupid white hair is."

Matt does a good enough impression that Mello has to snarl a warning at a passing girl who giggles when she overhears. She picks up her pace and leaves quickly, he's pleased to note. At least _someone _is still afraid of him, even if Matt and Near aren't.

Stupid Near.

"If I'm _boring _you, I can just leave then." He fumes, and Matt's unconcerned little smile doesn't help matters anyways.

"Go outside and kick something," Matt advises, and Mello storms off. Of course, Matt is right, but he's a genius. He doesn't need to be told so.

Outside, his head does feel a little clearer, but not by much. He can't even remember what set him off this time; it's always something. Everything Near does bothers Mello, simply because of who he is. Namely, in first place. He storms along the edge of the wall of the building, murderous expression scattering younger (and occasionally older) students from his path.

Because Mello, you see, needs to win. He's self aware enough to call it pathological, and probably overall it's pretty unhealthy, but in this case? He feels it's justified. After all, look at what's at stake. He cannot go back to being Mihael Keehl after this. And once the L of their generation is chosen, there's precious little use for the rest of them. Near is what's standing between him and _that. _

And then it hits him.

No really. It really hits him. On the back of the head, to be specific. Not hard enough to hurt, but certainly surprising as anything. He whirled, and immediately looked up at the windows above. They were all closed, and he hadn't heard any of them slam shut. Therefore, it was impossible that the thing... book, was what it was... could have come from any of the windows. Maybe the roof? No one could have been on the roof. It was steep and slanting. And it had definitely fallen from _up _to down. No one was near enough that they could have done it.

Whose rooms are above him? And who would have been clever enough to just slit the window open, rather than pull it closed in a hurry and give themselves away with the sound. Who disliked him enough to bombard him with notebooks.

Matt described Mello once as the sort who would chase after the man who lit his house on fire, rather than putting the fire out. Culprit caught, but by the time he's back, the home is cinders. Mello punched him for this observation, but it was probably correct.

Perfect. Near. He bends and picks up the book.

'Death Note,' the cover reads, and he has to wonder if he's been marked with the black spot. That's incredibly childish.

But. Near.

He feels anger well again, surging and overcoming his initial curiosity. He bends and picks up the notebook, about turns, and marches off in the direction of Near's room. If the fucking little sheep thinks he can dump paper on Mello, he has another thing coming to him.

Matt also observed, once, that Mello never seemed to go anywhere slowly. Mello was starting to think Matt spent a little too much time making his observations, and should play more computer games. He was right about that one too, though. Everyone along the way seems to melt out of his way, all the way until he's standing at Near's doorway.

Near knew it was Mello. Of course Near knew it was Mello. The knock was soft and polite, but that didn't make up for the sound of storming footsteps to begin with. You couldn't just come loudly up a quiet hallway, tap the frame, and be expected to be taken for meek.

But then, when it came to anger, Mello was never really rational. Near supposed it was hormones.

He's almost sorry he's being interrupted. It's not often something he's reading can attract his attention so completely, but fate has it that this is the one exception. The orphanage encourages all their students to be well informed on current events, so Near is busy doing what he's called 'L watch.' That is, scouring the papers from a dozen different countries for reference to the rather epic L vs Kira story.

As it was, he had no good reason to not answer the door, interesting though the papers might be. But forewarned is forearmed, and he's able to step out of the way with alacrity, as he opens it the first inch and Mello bursts through an instant later.

"Very fucking funny, Near," snarls Mello, brandishing a book at him, and Near feels a moment of genuine confusion, before the pieces go together and he can shrug.

"You think it was me because you don't know who else it could have been."

He's hit square in the forehead when Mello pitches the book at him. Fortunately, it's lightweight, note paper. Bound in a peculiar substance. With an English cover, standard lined paper, he can't tell what make without bending to pick it up off the floor, so he does.

'Death Note,' reads the cover. Mello is still yelling, Near is aware, but this is far too interesting. Because he doesn't know what the cover is made of, and because the paper isn't nearly as standard as he thought it was at first glance.

And because of what's written in it, of course.

"Mello," says Near, quietly, and the tirade is cut off. Mello glares, but listens. "Perhaps you should look at this?"


	3. Shinigami

Shinigami

The dining hall was abuzz with the gossip. In an enclosed environment, everyone tends to know everything about everyone. Especially about the frontrunners of the pack. The feud between Mello and Near (mostly perpetuated by Mello, though Matt swore Near could be pretty passive aggressive in his own right) was old news.

But tonight, something was obviously up. Matt knew, even before entering the room, that he'd find Mello and Near sitting together. He'd actually heard it a story down, in the library, where he was using one of the computers to do a little extracurricular espionage. (The librarian and Matt operated on a 'don't ask, don't tell' basis.)

The surprising thing about it is that it might have been an understatement. Rumours tend to be grossly exaggerated, but here the pair of them are, peering at something written, both picking only sparingly at their food. He gets his own meal before sidling over to join them.

"Is it a cold day in hell?"

Both of them start, guiltily. Mello, much more so than Near, but Matt is watching him so he catches the telltale flicker.

"If you don't want people prying," he says lightly, settling down next to Near, "you probably shouldn't be reading it in public. Whatever _it _is."

"It's nothing," Mello assures him, hurriedly. Matt snorts.

"I believe," Near's voice is calm, "that it would take considerably more than nothing for you to talk to me calmly and willingly, Mello." He seems to be resigned to giving up the secret, which leads Matt to believe it couldn't have been that important after all.

...which is obviously exactly what Near wants him to think. So he nabs the paper, tugs it over, and reads the first few sentences, feeling only a _little _bit of petty triumph at the reluctant frown on Near's face, and a _little _bit of annoyance when Mello kicks him under the table.

He practically swallows his tongue, when he reads the word 'Shinigami.'

"Where did you get this?"

Mello and Near exchange a look that he's a little frightened to be on the outside of.

"Out of nowhere," says Mello, cryptically. His eyes are narrowed. "Finish you're dinner. We're going back to my room." It must be a cold day in hell. Mello, Matt, and Near, the three of them, are _agreeing._

It's a struggle to eat. Every bite in Matt's mouth tastes like sand. He's starving, and he's so nervous he thinks he's going to throw up, and he's excited and worried and this couldn't possibly be what he thinks it is. But seeing Shinigami twice, no, _three _times in as many days can't possibly be a coincidence. Especially if Mello and Near are pouring over this book as seriously as it looked like they were. Dinner cannot possibly be over fast enough.

Then, suddenly it is, and he's walking down the hall with Near and Mello, trying to puzzle out exactly what to tell them.

Mello's room is a disaster. Matt knew this very well. Near apparently didn't, and he wrinkles his nose in distaste as he crosses the threshold. Matt expects that Near's room is probably neat as a pin. He pushes through the detritus coating the floor, and settles down on the edge of Mello's bed.

Great. Now the two of them are looking at him expectantly. He clears his throat and looks out the window for a moment, then back at Mello, because Near is just too damned unnerving.

"The paper. It's talking about a note."

Near only nods. Mello collapses onto his chair, and rocks it back on its two hind legs. Matt refuses to let either of them unnerve him. It helps to remember that he's older, and that even if they're smarter, he's the one with the information in this situation, and thus holds all the cards.

"Can I see it?"

While Near would not have been inclined to oblige this request, Mello procures it immediately from his coat pocket, where it was rolled up. This is why Near wanted to carry the note himself, but Mello insisted.

He remembers that Matt and Mello call each other 'best friends.' It occurs to him distantly that this concept is both very foreign, and that he might possibly be slightly jealous. He will have to guard against this feeling if he hopes to proceed with rational actions. He expects this will not be difficult.

Matt is inspecting the book. He is not nearly as thorough as Near was, but he is also two rungs down. Near expects he will have to make allowances.

"I, um, hacked Roger's files." When he gets older, Matt will know how to say this without shame. But right now, he's still breaking the rules, rather than walking through what he'll come to see as an open door. He's also lying to Mello, but that won't ever get easier. "About L's case. Kira left him a message, and the second Kira left the first Kira a message and they were..." about Shinigami, he doesn't need to finish.

Near wonders if when this is done, he'll have enough social currency to recruit Matt's help in his L watching. He tucks the thought away to examine later.

"Is this for real?" Matt finally asks, voice low and uncertain, and that's just the crux of the matter. They all stare at it for a moment. This is a catch twenty two. They cannot act unless it is real, they cannot verify it, and they cannot dismiss it unless it is a fake.

Not one of them ever says 'let's take this to Roger.' That is not how they have been raised. That is not who they are. That is not what L would do.

Near fiddles with his hair. Matt adjusts his goggles. Mello lunges.

Of course it had to be Mello that would act. He snatches the notebook, as though Matt would make a show of protesting, and a pen off the desk, flips it open and scribbles the name in it that they've all been thinking since they found something that could kill people this way.

_"Kira," _Mello snarls. Matt realizes in a sudden rush, and Near puts together slowly and deliberately, that any of them would probably kill for L. They both also see that this is a flawed experiment. Before they can speak, someone else says it for them.

"That won't work."

A deep, unfamiliar, female voice comes from directly behind them. Near's fingers clench, Matt pulls his goggles off, eyes wide, and Mello makes a short sound. The monster is between them and the door, and within three seconds they all have calculated that it's impossible.

Trust Mello to glare, and cross his arms over his chest petulantly.

"Worth a try."

She- it's a she, Matt decides- she laughs, like gravel, and blood seems to drip from her mouth and down her chin. Her legs of made of wood, like trees, bark studded. Her body is made of glass, he can see crystal organs inside her. Her arms are rotting flesh, her face is metal, like a collage with a tin man except not cheap face paint, real metal, real metal, with bloody lips and eyes. She has black feathered wings stretched out behind her, and they have maggots squirming through the feathers. Matt thinks he might be sick, or scream.

Mello swallows, loudly, but manages to speak.

"So you're a fucking shinigami, huh?"

And a quiet one. Her nod is his only answer.

"Shit."


	4. Tactics

Tactics

"Well, we have to talk to L," says Mello, as though this is the most natural and understandable thing in the whole entire world. As though this is as easy to do as walking down to the library and checking out a book, as inarguable as gravity.

"He probably knows nearly as much as we do," argues Near. He isn't sure how, but he, like all of them, tend to look at L with a certain worshipful attitude. Logically he knows there is no such thing as infallibility, but the person he played chess against...

That had just been the once. It had been two in the morning, night of a thunderstorm, and Near was out walking the hallways rather than lying in bed and thinking, eight years old and with his fingers wrapped in his hair. L had heard him walking past his door, and had shot an arm out into the hallway and simply grabbed him by his collar, and dragged him in. The young detective had announced that he was playing chess against himself, but it had come to a stalemate and that he needed Near's help. When they had nearly reached a stalemate again, L's wide eyes had grown wider, and he had smiled strangely and said 'you are either Near or Mello' and Near had felt a surge of warm, glowing pride and love like nothing he had ever felt before in his life. He'd thought he was going to cry on the chess board, and apparently so had L, because he gave him a strawberry and walked him to bed. But Near remembered the chess strategy most of all, and it had been unequivocally brilliant, and he would have lost, and probably still would, even four years later.

So. To Near, L _must _know these things. He only realizes that the assumption is possibly fallacious when Matt shakes his head.

"He isn't sure how it's being done. He has a suspect, who he's keeping a close eye on, but Mello's right. We need to find a way to tell him."

Sighurd was on the floor, ignoring this conversation, devouring one of Mello's chocolate bars. Apparently, it took being a shinigami to get him to share, because he'd certainly never given _Matt _any.

"The logical answer is to tell Roger," Near noted. Matt noticed the lingering uncertainty, but Mello didn't seem to. It seems Mello is trying to think of an objection, which shouldn't be that surprising, given his typical attitude towards authority figures.

"And now," Matt stresses. He climbs to his feet, and the other two look at him with surprise.

"It is 1:13 am." That would be Near, with cutting precision, even though there isn't actually a clock in sight. It wasn't nearly this late when they came in here, but when you meet a shinigami for the first time, you interrogate it, this much was obvious to all of them, "I do not think he would take our words kindly. We have very little in the way of proof."

"We have the note." Matt swallows, "And we have her. And L needs... needs help. What if Kira accepts the shinigami eyes? What then?"

He would die. Mello and Near look at each other, and climb to their feet. There is no help for it. Roger will have to be woken.

None of them could possibly have predicted how astonishingly badly it would go. Maybe L could have, but he was a little older and a little wiser. Maybe Near had an inkling, and wanted to ask Mello not to come in, but kept silent. Maybe they should have waited until proper morning. But even when they try again the next morning, they're dismissed.

See, because it's impossible, and they should confine their research to the rational, and Mello and Matt have always been trouble makers and Near is susceptible to peer pressure (they all realize when he says this, that Roger is sort of a fucking twerp) because of his socially ostracized situation, and no he doesn't want to see their notebook and if they don't get out of his office they'll all be severely disciplined.

"You would _think," _snarls Mello, in the hallway later, "that having been fucking told that the shinigami had come up more than once, he would be at least _slightly _inclined to listen." Matt looks out the window, and Near doesn't miss this. Mello, caught up in his anger, most certainly does.

"Well, then there's nothing to be done but to leave."

They look at Near, whose fists are clenched at his sides. He looks determined and terrified. Matt doesn't think he's ever even seen Near in the _yard._

But they're geniuses. And he's right. So they don't waste their breath, or any time, arguing.

"Midnight, at the front gates, pack lightly," whispers Mello dramatically, and Matt cuffs him across the back of the head, and corrects him.

"Except where we're leaving a eight pm, because it's a forty five minute walk to the nearest bus route, and the last bus for downtown leaves at nine. And Mello?" A glare. "If you forget the fucking note I'll kill you. Near?"

Wide eyed blink.

"Don't bring more than one toy, and try to think small, okay?"

Near frowns at him reproachfully. Even though he was probably right.

"Don't be late."


	5. Communication

Communication

"I don't like this," whines the shinigami on the back of the bus, where she was sitting next to Near, who is chewing distractedly on a thumbnail. The higher the level of stress, the more they all tended to emulate L, though of all of them, only Matt noticed it. Mello took another bite of his chocolate, across the aisle.

"I don't like this," echoed Near, blandly, looking straight at her and then at Matt. A woman nearby looked over her shoulder at the three of them and then away, disapprovingly.

"It won't be for much longer," Matt says, sort of desperately, "we just need to find somewhere to stay."

Mello snorts

"Somewhere cheap," Matt forged on, because this was where the plan fell apart. At the part where three children under the age of fifteen had to forge their way essentially across the globe to find a person who specialized in not being found.

None of them had once said it was impossible. Because it wasn't.

It just wasn't going to be easy, either.

"The jolts are hurting my wings," whines the shinigami, as they crash over a pothole at high speeds.

"The jolts are hurting my back," Near is almost whispering, and Matt tries to see past the echoed complaints, to guess how he's really doing. Mello isn't helping, he's looking out the window, expression murderous. Probably at being stuck with Near.

Only Matt seems to remember that Near is fucking _twelve, _and under all that passivity and intelligence and scheming quiet, he is like the rest of them: deeply fucked up, probably suffering abandonment issues and all other sorts of pleasant neurosis, evidently at least mildly agoraphobic and probably not going to let on when he needs help. Probably has been smarter than the psychologists all his life, so never really got any, either.

The whole thing is already giving Matt a headache.

"Why couldn't you own a car, like the rest of the humans?"

"Why couldn't you own a car?"

Matt snorts.

"I'm fourteen. I wouldn't be legal to drive it anyways."

Mello blinks at him, and says, "hey, I'm older than you."

"Since when has that made a difference?"

"I'm _older _than you?"

Matt gets his shoulder punched, and Near smiles, distantly when Matt snickers and says "Numbers aren't everything. But seriously. We need to make a plan. We can't just sit here and ride."

"Why not?" asks Sighurd, which is rather a change of tune, but she's taken up pulling the cord that requests a stop repeatedly, leading the busdriver to think that it's broken, and is apparently very amused by his swearing.

"Because this is our stop."

All of them look at Near, who's climbing to his feet and making for the door. There's a sign that says 'internet cafe.'

Matt swallows, and lifts the wallet out of the pocket of the man coming on the bus as they get off. With a few stolen credit card details and any luck, they'll be at the airport in the morning.


	6. Scam

Scam.

It's pretty risky, because he's the least socially on-his-feet one of them all, but they get Near to do it because, as Matt puts it, 'he's got the teddy bear thing going on.' Near smiles, beatifically, and Mello gets the impression that this isn't the first time he's taken advantage of this.

When the wallet Matt stole turns out to have nothing but a few tens in it, and a debit card ('That won't work for internet booking. Shit.') they head over to the MacDonalds across the street from the cafe and get hamburgers while planning their next move. Mello gets a chocolate milkshake with his, Matt gets an apple pie, and Near gets a happy meal with a little toy superman who attacks and _conquers _his french-fries, while the older two and the shinigami debate the next move.

Mello can't do it, because no one would trust him as far as they could throw him, dressed all in black with a long coat and nailpolish, all baby-prima-donna. Matt can't do it because, as he points out, 'I was the one that stole the wallet in the first place, okay? And shopkeepers have like, a _nose _for people like me. They're psychic.' So that leaves Near. Who has the teddy bear factor.

They send him into the most expensive store on the strip. One for camping supplies and the like, and straight up to the cash register and he says, all quiet and polite,

"Excuse me, Miss?"

The elderly woman at the register actually has to lean forwards to get a good look at him, over her counter.

"I'm sorry to trouble you, but my mother thinks she left her credit card here when she stopped by earlier, and she's pulled up outside and I was wondering if you'd found, um, a lost one?"

He sounds nervous. But that's good, thinks Matt, who's lounging outside the glass of the convenience store next door, ostensibly examining the shelves of cigarettes. Maybe he should take up smoking.

"We have two," says the woman kindly, "what's your mother's name, sweetie?"

"Marsha Gillespie," says Sighurd, sounding bored, from behind the woman's back, "or Lola Vasquez. There has to be some kind of rule against this."

"Mrs Marsha Gillespie?" Near steps up the cute with a watery smile and a nervous sort of stutter. The card changes hands, and he scampers for the door, calling "thank you, ma'am," over his shoulder, like Matt told him to, so she doesn't get suspicious and the card doesn't get cancelled.

Mello snatches it from him, and slides it into the pocket of his black jeans, giving Near's hair a ruffle because he knows he _hates _that.

"Alright," says Matt, "we can do this."

Back in the cafe, they pay for their time with the leftover change from Macdonalds, and book three tickets to...

"To where?" asks Mello, curious, and Matt looks up at him, fingers flying across the keyboard.

"It's where L is. It's the district where Kira was, so that's where the investigation came from."

"You know where L is?" asks Near, sharp, fingers tugging in his hair and hand curled around the superman toy like it's a lifeline.

"No," admits Matt, "I don't. But L is going to be as close to Kira as he can get. So what we've got to do is think like he would, right? After the thing with the newscaster, we as good as know for sure that this is where Kira lives. That L figures he's probably a student, given the times the deaths have been taking place, probably very intelligent, if he's still giving L trouble, so... top universities, high schools, and colleges from this district. Mello, there's paper in my bag, write these down."

Mello goes for the paper, and Near tugs his hair. After a moment, he offers his input:

"We can narrow this down more."

He reaches out, and touches the name of one of the universities on the screen.

"I consider it likely that the Kira suspect is recently graduated from school to college, or to..." his finger taps the glass "...or made some other sort of life transition. There has been a percent increase in the rate of killings, indicating a schedule change. Not one drastic enough to suggest the spare time an adult would possess, but it is more likely than not that the suspect's grades have either plummeted, or he is in a new setting. The fact that he is likely to be a perfectionist suggests to me the second."

Matt nods, but Near continues.

"An intelligent, perhaps borderline obsessive-compulsive perfectionist. This is the most prestigious of these institutions. Drawing the hypothesis out this far weakens its strength."

Mello snorts, and writes down the address. "It's either that or fucking go alphabetically. Now if we get to a bank machine, we can call a taxi for the airport."


	7. Launch

Launch

"Yeah," Matt shrugs, and wishes his goggles were down over his eyes but he knows he looks more earnest this way, "I know I'm young but dad said I just needed to give you this and you could get me on a plane, right?"

The man at the desk looks at him dubiously. He pushes on, trying to only let a little bit of his frustration show.

"It's me and my two little brothers. Our mother's having a baby."

"In Japan."

"Yes!"

"And you're here."

"We're at boarding school together. I could phone him? If you need to talk to an adult and everything, that would be like, okay, if your desk phone has long distance..."

Matt knows it doesn't. So does the man at the desk. But he doesn't know that _Matt _knows it doesn't, so eventually he just takes the credit card and books them on the next flight.

"It's tomorrow, departure six am. You're required to arrive at the airport a full two and a half hours beforehand for international flights."

It's one am.

"So basically we're staying over," Matt groans like the late-aged teen he's pretending to be. "Fuck. Is there a hotel attached to the facilities?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Well," says Matt, doggedly, "best give me our boarding passes now then, right?"

"Very good sir."

Ironically, in the airport it's only Matt that falls asleep. Mello might have been the type to sprawl out like he owned the place. Near might very well have just curled up, regardless of anyone else. But Matt settles down in the lobby, tugs absently at his shirt sleeve, looks at the clock, then at Mello, and says,

"Wake me up if you need anything," and his head rolls back and he's out before he's even finished slumping down in his seat.

Mello, looking across the gap between lines of chairs at Near's huddled form, rather envies him. He can't tell if Near is jealous or not. Probably not, he decides, he can't see Near sleeping much. What with being the obvious next L and all, he was more likely than not to be training himself to sleep as little as possible. He feels a swell of jealousy.

"Well."

"Well."

Sighurd glances between them.

"What's up with you two?"

Mello glowers at her, and Near sets his chin on his knees.

"Mello doesn't like me. I know that."

He tries to make this sound more like an apology than an answer to the question, for the sake of anyone that might be listening.

"But," Mello adds hastily, unwilling to look like the immature one in this case, "that's not going to affect this. Because you're a suckup and you're too perfect but I like L more than I hate you."

Mello has met L three times. The first time was when he was new- a little too old to be joining Wammy's, but clever enough to make up for it by far. Someone called him a name, he can't remember what now, and he gave them a look of livid disdain, so very clear that they actually recoiled, and L, who had been walking past, had seen and ruffled his hair out of sheer amusement. This counted as once.

The second time he was being punished with extra chores, and one of them was to walk a tray of food to Roger's office. Lunch for one and enough chocolates, cakes and sweets to feed a small army, the tray so heavy his arms strained to lift it. He knocked on the door with his foot, and was called to come in. He had to set the tray down on the floor, open the door, keep it open with his foot, bend to pick up the tray, and then push through with his shoulder. This was distracting enough that he didn't even notice L was there, stream of speech uninterrupted, giving Roger some sort of report that only stopped when Mello set the tray between them. L looked up at him, and Mello couldn't read what was in his expression entirely, but his heart sunk with the knowledge that L didn't seem to recognize him. But then Roger bent to get a paper from a bottom dresser, and quick as lightening, L's hand darted out and grabbed a chocolate off the tray, then popped it into Mello's startled, open mouth. And mouthed his name at him. He left the room in an embarrassingly giddy rush, heart full to bursting.

Returning to the here and now, he fixed his eyes back on Near. Who didn't look too good, come to think of it, like he was maybe a little uncertain, for once.

"Want to go get some chocolate?"

Near looks once at the sleeping Matt, then up at Sighurd.

"Can you stay with him and wake him if someone's... you know."

Sighurd nods. She seems to sort of be developing a soft spot for Near. He's aware of this and decides that if he uses it to his advantage just yet, or is too ruthless about it, it will vanish, and this is a trump card he would like to save till later.

"Then I'll get you some candy," he promises, earnestly, and walks after Mello, who had pushed away the minute he figured Near's answer was a yes.


	8. Flight

Flight.

"I don't hate you, you know," Mello says as he and Near walk back from the bathroom. He shoves Near a little harder than is companionable. Near just chalks it up to Mello being a total sociopath. But he doesn't hate him.

"Hallelujah, lord Jesus Christ," deadpans Near. Mello doesn't realize he's joking for a good few seconds, and then the sound of Mello's laughter wakes Matt up all the way back where he's still sleeping on the bench. It's a good sound.

They board without issue, except Near having a minor panic attack and having to be elbowed in the back, because Matt and his perpetually sticky fingers had the foresight to pick up their passports from Roger's files. Breaking into locks isn't really like breaking into computer files, but he loves doing both.

It's come in handy more than once.

On the plane, Near plays with his happy-meal superman, and a little toy bear that says is wearing a beefeater's outfit that he picked up in the souvenir shop in the airport, and the one toy he brought with him, which is a little action figure of the creature from the black lagoon. Apparently, the three of them are riding an airplane somewhere.

Matt would complain about him accumulating too much stuff, but when the stewardess makes them stow their bags (they've all just got one backpack apiece, so they went carry-on) and Near has to put his action figures away, his eyes go really wide and he looks unsteady. Like having something in his hands is part of what it takes to keep him balanced, and what keeps Near happy keeps Matt happy right now, frankly.

On the plane they talked in hushed voices, like they're good young children. A grandmotherly looking woman smiles at them.

"Superman," says Mello, putting emphasis on the name, "in the latest episode. Matt. He'd probably be operating out of his usual lair, right?"

"The Fortress of Solitude," whispers Near, and makes the superman character whoosh around. "Can we talk about batman instead?"

Mello notices that the superman is being mighty protective of the small teddy bear, and that Near has drawn little goggles on it with a marker he had in his backpack. He decides it's probably best not to mix metaphors.

"Batman's cool. Hey, I heard they might be shooting a movie of batman. I bet he's staying in all the five star hotels, huh? Probably moving around every few days so no one finds him."

Matt, who hadn't really been paying attention, catches on.

"And not the one nearest the site where he's filming. We can safely give it a two mile radius, and then another couple out from that. But there's no way a fan would ever be able to get to him in his hotel room anyways. I mean dude, he's batman, he'd totally have the place all batcaved. Bugged and everything. Alfred would see anybody coming and would totally have them arrested."

Mello rolls his eyes.

"Alfred doesn't exist, Matt." But Watari does, so that comment is just for the benefit of anyone eavesdropping. Sighurd, slightly belatedly, catches on.

"You're talking about your detective again." Neither of them answer, of course. Near starts humming the superman theme song, and Sighurd gives up. "I'm going to go fly behind the plane."

Matt flinches when she walks through the wall, out into thin air. There's something so very wrong about that.

"So if a fan wanted to talk to him, they'd have to go on location, as it were. Provided they knew where the filming was going on."

Mello nods his agreement.

"More than that. Where the filming was going on, that particular day. I suppose you could probably camp out and wait for him to come somewhere, but unless there was a way to get ahold of his schedule somehow..."

"That wouldn't be possible," Matt said, shortly, reaching for his backpack. Specifically, his gameboy. It turns on, and the man across the aisle gives him a nasty look at the noise. Matt shrugs sheepishly, and mutes it, before glancing back at Mello.

"You should get some sleep, Mello."

Near is moving the arms of the lagoon-creature up and down, and looking at neither of them. When he speaks, of course they both listen.

"If Matt can get us to another computer, with a little privacy, I think I know a way to make the chances of an encounter improve by a significant margin."

"Hush, Near," says Matt gently, but with approval. Yes, he can get them to a private computer.

He doesn't even know how they're going to _eat, _when they get to Japan, but somehow, he will make this happen.

It's easy to forget how incredibly smart Mello is. He hides it beautifully, under a crass exterior and fluent profanity. He bullies people into getting what he wants rather than convincing them they wanted to do it to begin with, like Near would, or by smiling at them like Matt.

Mello is incredibly smart.

So as Matt is leading them down the street, following the map the information desk gave them for instructions towards the nearest youth-hostel, he thinks out loud, and quickly, in rapid bursts. Near is quiet; the lack of sleep and the foreign, terrible, busy surroundings starting to finally get to him. Matt is concentrating on the paper.

Both of them are actually listening closely.

"The only real question, is would he have confronted Kira face to face, if he had a definite suspect."

Mello is picking at chipped nail polish on his index finger with his thumb. Near, who's holding onto his hand with a death grip anyways, tugs him slightly so he doesn't walk into a stop sign, since he plainly isn't paying attention to where he's going.

"And if so, whether he'd go try to talk him in person or not. If he got his nails sunk in before the second Kira emerged, I would say yes, but since the second one apparently has the shinigami eyes," he stutters, as Sighurd flies straight through the stop sign that Mello nearly missed, "if it was after that, maybe not. And even so."

Matt nods absently, and makes them turn left. They almost get hit by a car crossing the next intersection. Near flinches, and Mello ignores it.

"L is smart," Mello says, "and patient as all get out about a lot of things, but normal people probably aren't one of them. He operates in isolation, so he won't be used to it any more. My guess is that he spends as little time possible pursuing the Kira suspect out in an every day setting as possible. So the odds of finding him there are infinitesimally small."

"4 is not infinitesimal," Near points out, in a flat tone of voice, and Mello drags his hands away and shoves them into his pocket. Near looks chastised, and stops quibbling.

"So even though it's going to be a hell of a lot harder to break in to see him, we're going to have to go to his hotel. Which he will be switching nearly every day."

"His location will not be impossible to predict," murmurs Near. "There is a standard policy for the pattern of L's movements around a city,"

"Five days, then four, three suites each time, two on one floor and one on the floor above, always above the eighth floor and ideally without any high rise buildings nearby." The hacker shrugs. "Narrowing it down shouldn't take too long. Records of room stays will be impossibly easy to get, leave that to me. We're not much farther, I don't think."

"You don't think?" gripes Mello. He has a point, they've been walking for a long time. Awake even longer.

"My Japanese is good, but not perfect."

Near reaches for the map, and Matt isn't even really that surprised that he speaks the language. It's Near. He may only get as far as making lego towers in his pyjamas most days, but you know he's translating Shakespeare into Japanese in his head, and would be able to tell you how many more consonants you needed per sonnet.

"We're... one block away."

Matt nods, like he knew that, but thank God, because he'd been about to take them left and Near turns right, and he can see the building. There are teenagers lounging on the steps outside, smoking cigarettes, staring at them blatantly as the approach. Not moving as they climb the stairs.

If it weren't for Mello's fierce expression, Matt doubts they'd have made it. As it is, it gets them through, and Mello is the one who drags them up to the counter. He speaks Japanese too, bless him, the Matt can tell his accent isn't very good.

"We need a room, please," he understands approximately, and he is suddenly exhausted beyond all rational belief.

These people obviously get stranger sights than the three of them. There are no questions, just the necessary moment of nonsense with paperwork and regulations that marks everything these days.

"There's only two beds per room."

Mello shakes his head.

"We-"

The receptionist understands something in his tone, because that's the end of that discussion. Matt doesn't think they even end up paying, before she's herding them up towards their room. Obviously they must look totally trashed. That, or Near's turning into progressively more of a teddy bear. This might be the case, he has his arms wrapped around Matt's arm and he doesn't feel like he's letting go of it any time soon.

She leaves them, and Matt tumbles numbly into the bed, taking his backpack and shoes off once he's landed. Mello takes the other bed, and before Near can so much as think to look indecisive, Matt shuffles back against the wall and pats the space next to him.

Near's tiny anyways.

"I'm the better bet. Mello kicks."

"Mother fucker," grouses Mello, drowsily.

Near hasn't even finished taking his shoes off, and Matt is asleep.

**AN:** Woot, super long chapter! Merry Christmas everyone, I guess.

I got a question in the reviews; why was Near repeating everything the shinigmai was saying? To answer it here, in case other people had the same problem... in order to converse with an invisible conversation on a public bus, without sounding like crazy people. This way, Matt could address his answers to Near, without looking batshit loco. They went through the effort, when Light didn't, because they're a little less... I'd say cocky, but this is _Mello _we're talking about, soI'll settle for proud? Please, do keep asking questions. I have a well documented habit of being far, far, far too vague.

Also, I try not to leave obnoxiously long authors notes, but questions are pretty much my only exception. In my early days as a writer I was a comment-whore, I guess, but I've learned to let it be. Reviews are gold, but begging for them is just... not my thing.


	9. Research

Research

"We," Matt groans, and sits up, "we have to get moving."

Mello moans. Near just whimpers. Matt feels like such a fucking parent.

"You guys." Emotional blackmail time. "L could die."

That gets Mello up, back ramrod straight. His hair is all sticking out to one side and he looks dishevelled and tired and frightened. Matt feels kind of like a jerk, but he knows he's right. Near isn't stirring.

"Near?"

"I'm."

Mello is staggering to his feet, in the direction he figures the showers are in. Matt doesn't even know what time it is, except that it's light out and there's noise in the streets, so that means they can get what they need.

"Near, we have to go for food and a library. You can stay here if you need to, but we have to go." Near sits upright almost immediately, and Matt winces. He'd been just a little bit too right about Near's... he didn't want to say neediness, because it seemed to imply that he was being a burden or was asking for something, and he clearly wasn't... but he doesn't like to see it, anyways.

Near doesn't like that Matt can see it. Doesn't like that this means he might tell Mello, that Mello might think something was amiss.

Because it wasn't. He could do this. He was very much aware that it was simply a matter of putting one foot in front of the other, and staying close to Matt and Mello, and finding and saving L above all else. Then, catching Kira. Because what Kira was doing was very, very, very wrong.

"If you spray a plant with caustic pesticides," he tells Matt, sitting up on the edge of the bed, winding his fingers in his hair absently, "you kill the aphids and you kill the plant."

"That's why L's stopping him."

Matt always did understand him better than anyone else. Mello probably won't notice anything.

It's just that Near likes things a certain way. He wears his clothes a certain way, and brushes his hair a certain way, and eats the same thing for breakfast, and lunch, and then tea and then dinner. He has classes the same times every week. He is brilliant at spotting abnormalities and analyzing them because they are so very abnormal.

Right now, he's lost his frame of reference. He didn't pack a hair brush, it was made of wood and cumbersome and a comb was more practical. But he's tired, so he forsakes brushing his hair completely, and suddenly because of it his grasp of higher level trigonometry is a little bit shakier.

It's not a problem. Because they aren't going to need trigonometry to catch find L.

But it's going to become a problem if he can't find something to make this normal, and fast.

"Hey Near," Matt's voice shakes him out of his reverie, as Matt paws sleep from his eyes. "Do you think Mrs McCaffrey looks more like a bat or an iguana?"

The comment is utterly inconspicuous, totally normal, and something Matt would say to him on any given day whatsoever.

It helps. He ignores it, because it's childish and immature (an iguana) but it helps.

The librarian that they run into looks like an iguana too, interestingly enough. Near is dubious, at first, that they'll be able to get into the hotel rooms using just an old library computer, but he may have underestimated Matt.

While the records are being pulled up, at a snails pace, Mello reads them news clippings regarding Kira, with his botchy, imperfect accent that makes Near correct him every so often. Mello hates being corrected, and snarls at him. That's normal too. That's really good.

There are twenty nine hotels that fit the criteria for location. Twenty one of those do it for height, too. Near starts writing down names and addresses on hard paper, since printing documents is harder to erase than internet history (play it safe) and they don't have money on them any more anyways.

"We should get a new credit card," Matt says as he types. 'Get' means 'steal.'

"Empty the last one first," Near says blandly.

"They'll trace it."

"They already know we're looking for L. We will only confirm their very well founded suspicions, and it would be less conspicuous than arrest. There's a withdrawal machine— there."

He points, through the library window. Outside of a mall, a block away. Mello snaps his fingers at Matt, who, if he finds this irritating, doesn't let on. He just hands over the card.

"Get as much as you can."

"I fucking know."

Lack of sleep makes Mello even more irritable, so Near leaves Matt, and gingerly leaves the library too, then presses his nose against the glass of the convenience store and concentrates on looking waifish and hungry, like Matt taught him, until some annoyingly high pitched girl with a fake smile looks at him and then he blinks at her and she asks him his name, and when he comes back to the library Matt is still working. Mello is there.

Near hands him the chocolate bar wordlessly, and Mello inhales it and ruffles Near's hair with chocolaty fingers. Since he didn't brush it anyways, this doesn't bother him in the slightest.

"That's six hotels that he's been to, so far," Matt mutters, "Near, you've got the map, right? We should look for a pattern.

There is none.

They aren't near each other. They aren't even as far away from each other as possible, either. They don't have names in common, they aren't going numerically, or alphabetically by street name, or in order of height, or even by when the last review was printed.

It turns out, L has stayed in eleven of the possible matches.

"But these all end weeks ago."

Mello frowns, and says what they're thinking.

"We're missing something. There has to be..."

"Mello." Matt interrupts him, but it sounds like something has occurred to him, so he doesn't call him on it, "get me the name of the top three most reliable moving companies in the district that would do hotel to hotel. They'll have had equipment. I know what kind of computer L uses and you aren't fitting those sorts of things in a couple of cars."

Near thinks that this is a stretch. They might have purchased a van, but a legitimate moving company would attract less questions than an unmarked van... possibly one with advertisements painted on the side? But then, Watari wasn't a young man, and L wasn't physically built for lifting. Additional hired help would be a liability, and would open them for infiltration. Much better a moving crew that knew nothing.

Matt starts with the second best, and the patterns show up right away. He gets their address, and subsequently, into their records, and the names of all the hotels pop up. He lists them off... except.

"There's a hole. We didn't get this one. There was a delivery from here to... the Royale isn't on our list. Why isn't the Royale on our list?"

Mello immediately opens a new browser window, but Near remembers, so he cuts in;

"Ineligible. A new high rise building one city block down, well within danger distance."

"How new?"

Near looks at Mello, who pulls the information up after a few clicks.

"_Very _new. Impressive company in charge of the project. Construction was finished _after _L's check out dates, that's why we missed it. And man, whoever built this place, they weren't kidding. It's a fucking _fortress _in the middle of the city."

Near smiles.

Matt gasps.

Mello blinks, and then swears:

"No fucking way. He built a batcave?" His eyes practically shine. "How _badass _is that?"

Near doesn't admit it, _of course, _but for once, he completely agrees.


	10. Stalk

Stalk

"I want to get us there tonight," Matt pushes his hair out of his face, and rubs his eyes with one hand, the other fighting clumsily with the chopsticks as he tries to manage the bowl of noodles in front of him, "I really want to, but my instincts say we need to sleep."

Matt knows L a little better than the other two. When he was seven, and new at Wammy's and not anyone's best friend yet, he had... _semi _accidentally hacked into CIA files, and completely accidentally triggered a trap.

L had heard about it and was _thrilled. _He came back and he and Matt spent an hour, Matt nervously telling him what he'd done and how, and how they should probably change this about their system if they didn't want it to happen again.

But _not _ how now that he knows where the trap is sure he could probably get in there any time, because the measures he triggered felt (to his expert instincts) like a last line of defence.

L gave Matt the strawberry off the top of his cheesecake

"I mean I care about him as much as you guys. Even if I'm not."

Not really in the running any more.

"That much is obvious," says Near. He sounds sort of scornful, as though Matt's stupid for thinking he and Mello would ever doubt him. It's rude, but it makes him feel better anyways. Near is using his chopsticks precisely, like wielding a surgical weapon.

Mello throws a napkin at him, and Matt glowers in return.

"Well, now we know where he is, getting to him is going to be next to impossible."

Near nods in agreement.

"Watari would not let us enter. We could probably find no real legitimate pretence for being there; there is no longer any construction being done, and even Matt is too young to blend in to that sort of thing surreptitiously. I think further observation is in order, and further consideration."

Matt nods numbly, and Mello considers. Sighurd, who tends to be silent in public, speaks, startling them all.

"You could kill Watari."

Matt looks shocked. Mello looks confused. Near looks stony, and adamant, and speaks first.

"We could not. It is an alias, and it would be _wrong."_

Sighurd shuts up again, and wonders at her luck. Ryuuk got a psychotic human with ideals of planetary purity. She got three preteens, at least one of whom didn't even believe in capital punishment.

"I think I might be Buddhist," Near sips his tea, and considers, "I might like the idea of organized religion."

Matt snorts, and Mello glances at him.

"Whatever, Matt, I'm catholic. Not, you know, a _good _one. But Near can be Buddhist if he wants to."

Matt concedes with a nod.

"So can we go back and get some sleep?"

Mello digs into his pocket for some of their money.

"I'll pay."

The third time Mello met L was at the beginning of the whole Kira case, ages ago now. He had been visiting the orphanage, since that was the only place he was guaranteed to rest. The dark circles under his eyes had looked particularly painful, and when Mello crashed into him (literally) coming back from the bathroom, he felt like not much more than bone.

"Mello," said L, gladly, once he got his breath back, "you're tall."

"I'm not supposed to be here," whispers Mello, glancing back over his shoulder, "sorry, I was. Jennifer's room." Jennifer had a sweet smile, and liked to try to kiss him sometimes, and held his hand when he wasn't running. Everyone went on about how great girls were, but... but he'd rather just play Nintendo with Matt. He doesn't communicate this reluctance to L, who just winks at him and shoos him on his way.

"I will see you later."

L doesn't see him later. He's called away on the Kira investigation the next morning, before he's fully recovered, and Mello thinks about the dark circles and hopes he stops to sleep at least _once _in a while.

Mello suddenly decides something.

"Hey. I have a better idea. What if you and Near go back to get some sleep, and I go to the batcave," they're all still calling it that, "and wait outside. Then when you wake up, you come find me and we switch. If he ever comes in and out, that way I talk to him. Or at least establish how people come and go."

Matt can find no objection to this plan, though it strikes him somehow as a bad idea. Rather than argue, he climbs to his feet.

"You know the way."

Mello nods, and rises too. So does Near.

"I know the way."

Mello thinks he could get used to Japan.

The streets are busy, sure, and maybe it's a little brighter than the weather he's been used to at Wammy's place, and maybe people give him some pretty weird looks... but for the most part, it's alright. He needs to find a fork somehow and just carry it on him in case of emergencies.

Also, he decides, a gun. Would be nice to have. But guns are illegal here, aren't they?

Well, at least he's not likely to be shot, if that's the case.

He stays fifty feet away from L's batcave, since it's likely that the surveillance cameras won't extend past forty, and he wants to not get caught on them. Then again, maybe he should just go up and knock. Watari might let them in, since they've come this far...

But no. He loses his resolve and stays back, sitting on the window sill of a nearby shop, watching pedestrians go back and forth. If Watari sends him back to Roger without telling L anything, then there's no _way _they'll ever get him the death note.

Ah.

Someone's coming out of the building. Mello risks a walk by, strolling down the block with his hands in his pockets, dragging his feet. Out of the corner of his eye he watches four men emerge. One young, two a little older, and one with distinguished grey hair.

He recognizes the way the older one moves. That one, at least, is a cop. The other three probably are as well.

So L is working with the Japanese police. That's good to know. He walks one more block up, then takes a left turn, and circles back to where he saw a bench that he could probably wait at a little more comfortably.

If anyone else comes out, Mello is not going to miss them. Not a chance. Not with this much at stake.


	11. Waiting Game

Waiting Game

They watch the building for two days, taking shifts with sleeping, eating in restaurants around the area, browsing, making like it's natural.

It is completely unnatural; three people who technically qualify as 'brilliant' cannot solve a problem. They have come this far, are practically at the gates, and are stumped.

"We could set the building on fire," proposes Mello, flicking through a comic strip and ignoring Near, who's curled up on the bench next to him, leaning against him, with his hands in Mello's hair.

"Mello," Near mutters, "you have proposed six solutions thus far, and three of them have involved flames."

"I'm just saying. If we set the building on fire, then they'd have to evacuate, right?"

Matt just ignores him. It's a stupid idea. That's not to say he doesn't think about it seriously, but if there was that kind of offensive movement, Watari would probably have L evacuated by helicopter, the explosives would be too difficult to plant, and gasoline is expensive if they were to go that way. Also, not subtle. It's a sad day when Matt begins to seriously consider one of Mello's 'lets just blow it up' plans seriously, but that's what they've come to.

He sighs, leans gently to the side, and rests his forehead against Mello's shoulder.

"I wish I had my gameboy. I'd think better with my gameboy."

"None of us are thinking very well right now," Mello assures him, with a verbal shrug, in lieu of a physical one, so as not to dislodge him, "I'm thinking it might almost be worth it to let Near put his pyjamas back on."

"I _would _think better if I could be as I was," Near agrees, only sounding mildly reproachful. He was in blue jeans, and yes, his pyjama shirt on top of them, but the jeans poked and were tight and made curling up uncomfortable for him. The key here was not to get noticed, and a child on the road in their night things would be talked about. A child on the road in their night things camped outside the headquarters of a genius detective for prolonged periods of time, even more so.

Near acknowledged this was true. That didn't mean he had to like it. But if Matt had forsaken his goggles, and Mello was wearing a blue polo shirt, then he supposed he could make the sacrifice.

Even if his heart nearly beat out of his chest when he caught glimpses of himself in the glass. He wanted his _order _back again, and badly.

"I think there's someone coming out."

There was.

"Oh, it's her."

There was only one female visitor to the building. A blond woman would arrive infrequently, and would generally leave either skipping, or miserable. Or furious. She seemed to occupy her emotions very completely...

Matt thought she was kind of cute, and said as much. Mello instantly decided he _hated _her.

"We're going to have to get her, or one of the officers to let us in there."

Near nodded, thoughtfully.

"It is a matter of making them feel like they have to, rather than convincing them to let us. If they are in L's service, he will have inspired utter loyalty into them."

Like he does with everyone, all of them think, privately.

"I think we should follow her," Near says, abruptly, climbing to his feet. "Now. We can—" he isn't sure what to call it.

"Plant seeds," Matt suggests. "Good idea. Near, here's what you're going to do."

"Excuse me! Excuse me, miss!"

Misa turned around, looking for the source of the voice.

"You dropped this."

And glancing down, she found it. _The _most adorable child on the planet was at her feet. He was small, and frumpily dressed in a white shirt that needed to be burned, and sneakers, and he had a mop of white curls and great big eyes, and she nicknamed him 'Bambi' in her head immediately.

"Oooh, sweetie pie, are you talking to Misamisa? Would you like an autograph? I have paper in my purse."

Near, drawn up short, only nods once.

"And I saw you drop this."

He holds up a pink cell phone with hearts on it.

"Ai! It must have fallen out of my purse!" Misa snatches it immediately, and Matt, around the corner, snickers into his hand. 'Fallen.' Right. "Thank you, what is your name?"

"Near," says Near, sounding shy and sort of nervous, and it helps that he's flushed from chasing after her. She coos at him and it makes him want to gag, but he accepts the autograph with a smile when she gives it to him.

"Thank you, Miss Misa. I have to go home now, but I'm glad I could help."

Misa pinches his cheek (it _hurts_) and heads off, and Near walks back towards Matt and Mello. Both of them are looking at him kind of sympathetically, and when Matt talks he sounds startled and proud, both.

"You're getting really good at this, Near."

Mello snickers, and says,

"If you'd been like this before, we'd have had to recruit you ages ago."

Near rolls his eyes. Matt grins at Mello again.

"Now. How about you two head home and sleep. I can stay the night."

Matt smiles at him, thankfully, which pretty much gets rid of the slight distaste at his own suggestion that he had been feeling, takes Near by the hand, and heads off. Leaving Mello to wait on the street for the night.

Let it never be said that they are not determined.

**Author's Note:** **A couple of things...**

a) I'm looking for a beta reader for a v for vendetta/death note crossover, just for grammar for the most part.

b) the structure for this story has taken concrete shape. There will be 17 chapters and an epilogue.

c) thanks for the reviews :D you make me happy. To Melissa: I'm writing chapters for the first time in three years! Traditionally, I do drabbles and vignetty things, (see Nine Ways Mello Woke Matt up at an UnGodly Hour, my much more traditional fare) so I'm slowly getting into the swing of extended plot and description. I realize that right now, it's a little bit machine-gun-ish, but thank you, I will watch and try to improve. You're very kind and helpful 3. To HammerChan: SHHHHHHH. Do not point out to the over jittery child geniuses that there are trustworthy adults in their lives! They will assume you are one of the Enemy Team (the grownups) and will consider everything you say irrelevant... also, you will give away my plot. You aren't quite EXACTLY spot on, but I had to blink and think 'how much of this have I posted?'


	12. Twilight

Twilight

Back at the hostel, the same crowd of teenagers are lounging around the front steps, all smoking and looking bored. Matt and Near look at each other nervously, before approaching the steps. Matt readjusts his goggles, and Near puts his hands in his pockets.

"Hey," says one of the guys there, immediately, "wait a sec."

"Near, I'll be up in a minute," says Matt, propelling him up the steps and through the door, and stopping. Thus, simultaneously doing as he says and getting Near well out of harm's way.

"'sup?" Christ, Matt wishes he were more on top of current Japanese slang.

"Wow," says the guy, "you're really protective of him, huh? He your brother? You two don't look alike at all."

Matt shrugs, and fixes his goggles.

"Foster brother."

The atmosphere changes. These are the unwanted children of this place, he realizes, who live here because it's better than home. Who hang out here because home isn't home. Matt is a foster-care kid, and now it is like being one of them. It simultaneously gives them the right to be a lot harder on him, and guarantees that he won't have any bones broken. At least, not on purpose.

"Smoke?" One of the others offers him a cigarette. He takes it, instead of saying no, and lets one of them light it for him. They all wait expectantly as he takes the first drag. Then, of course, they all get to laugh at him when he starts choking and sputtering wildly. As he knew he probably would. He doesn't smoke.

"Wow," gasps Matt, "that was _so _much less cool than it could have been."

"Don't worry," says a girl on the bottom step, pulling her short skirt down a little, "everyone coughs the first time. You'll get used to it."

"Thanks," says Matt, eyes watering. Once he can breathe again, he looks up at the boy who seems to be the proverbial ringleader of the pack. These power dynamics are even easier to tell among people his age than they are among adults... though technically, Matt is probably younger than anyone here.

"I'm Hong." Hong's family is Chinese. He doesn't tell Matt this, but they moved here when his parents heard of the 'good' Kira was doing. Hong's little sister was killed by an armed robber during a bank hold up, you see. To people who have been through what his family have, the concept of Kira is a little different. It doesn't come up, but if it had, Matt would have thought that fate worked in funny ways.

"Matt. I've got to go make sure Near's okay, but..."

Hong shrugs, and opens the door for him with a grin. "Later, hey?"

Matt nods. "Later."

Near is sitting on the foot of the bed, and he looks glad when Matt comes in. As though he'd been worried for him, which is nice of him.

"I can take care of myself, you know." Matt chides, frowning at him. Near looks nonplussed.

"I know."

"You don't need to worry about me."

"I know."

"Or about those guys, they seem pretty cool."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

Matt toes off his shoes. Near is already back in his pyjama pants, probably changed the minute he went through the door.

"Hey, Near."

"Yes Matt?"

"If you wake up and I'm not here tonight, don't panic."

Near blinks at him, and it's a question he doesn't bother attaching words to. Absently, he reaches out and touches the whitewashed brick wall next to his bed, scratching at a place where a bit of the paint has chipped off.

"I might go sit with Mello for a bit. He gets kind of nuts when he's bored, you know?"

A faint smile. Of course Near knows.

"Are you alright to stay on your own?"

Near worries his bottom lip between his teeth, and nods. Still silent.

"You know where to find us if you need anything. And... if you're in big trouble, there's the woman in the office at the front, and the head of the pack on the steps is named Hong, and if you did need anything..."

"Matt."

Matt shuts up. Near smiles at him.

"You are not my mother."

Brat. Matt starts snickering, and stands.

"Well, no. But I'm... not actually the oldest. But."

Near smiles at him, and whispers, "And thank you. Now, rest a bit and then go keep Mello from lighting anything on fire, please."

'Now I lay me down to sleep,' thinks Matt, and rests back against the pillows, wondering if Mello prays before he goes to bed.

Determined practice has given him the (valuable) ability to wake himself up in a certain amount of time, so even though he's tired, his eyes open at about half past midnight, and he pulls himself upright, stifling a groan, so as not to wake Near. Who most definitely needs his sleep. Okay, maybe he is acting like a mother a little more than usual, but he tells himself that that's just to be expected.

The crowd of teens has dispersed from the steps when he comes out, and the streets are empty, but for a few cars. He walks to the batcave with his hands in his pockets, looking around carefully, aware that he's out late. No one even looks at him funny.

This is probably because of Kira. Matt is suddenly practically drowning in the irony of it. He is only able to be here, trying to stop the man, because of the steps he has already taken. Otherwise, someone his age wandering through this part of town at one in the morning would never be a good idea. Otherwise, they would never have left Mello on his own to sit and watch the doors. He's still laughing, when Mello saunters out of the alleyway and slides an arm around his neck from behind.

"Give me all your money or you're dead," comes the whisper, and Matt rolls his eyes and sags back into him, comfortably.

"I know it's you, dumbass."

"You smell like cigarettes."

Mello's nose is practically in his ear. He finds himself propped back up on his feet.

"I was smoking," admits Matt. Admitting nothing.

"Right. Ew." Mello rubs his nose, and settles back down on their bench. "Well, no one's made a single move."

Matt shrugs. Neither of them expected them to. It would be a break with the pattern. No one comes in or out this late at night.

There's a long moment of silence, as Matt joins Mello on the bench. He draws his knees up to his chest, like L would, without thinking about it.

Takes a deep breath.

And says,

"I think I can get us in there."

**AN: **Next chapter from L's perspective. Posting two at once because it is pathetically short, but I wanted it to be a separate and distinct entity. This is, I believe, the first L centric chapter to be posted here... though there's another one at a site that accepts considerably higher ratings . 


	13. Interlude: L

Lawliet

Yagami Light is asleep on the bed next to him, and for the first time in the few weeks they've been chained together, L is beginning to question the wisdom of his decisions. The bruise from their fight a few days ago is subsiding, but his face is still tender. He can also see Light flinch when he moves too quickly. They have not come to blows since, but there have been arguments.

He has his laptop flat on his knees, back uncomfortably straight, rather than reclining against the pillows and resting it higher up, on his lap and the bottom of his ribs. In his usual position, the edge cuts into a still-fading bruise, and he can't abide the pain.

L doubts Light. How could he not? Until a short while ago, he would have been prepared to stake his life on the fact that Yagami Light was Kira. He was staking his life on it; he had the teen on the investigation team for a reason. It was a dangerous mood, but also far more likely to yield results than playing it safe would.

All the same, he didn't want to die.

More than that, he didn't want to be wrong. And he did, at the same time, because Light was the first person he'd ever...

Something.

Never mind.

It's not that he's never known people like himself. When he was a boy at Wammy's... well, there was never any competition. Not really. But there was conversation, and plenty of it. The children around him were bright and sharp, and he talked and played with them infrequently, but gladly.

When he goes back there now, the little ones stare at him with awe, and something in their eyes he cannot name.

He thinks of Near, solemnly frowning at the chess board and looking up at him tentatively, nearly too shy to meet his eyes. Then ripping a hole through his defence and ruthlessly taking his queen and bishop before L has a chance to block.

If he dies, at least there will be someone to take over. Although a seventy percent likelihood exists that his death will be caused by Yagami Light, who will proceed to take over his position as L.

He programmed a message to be sent automatically just yesterday, barring his interference. In case things go the way he thinks they might.

Light murmurs gently in his sleep, and rolls over. The noise, and the tug at his wrist, startle L out of his reverie, and he looks down at Light as though just noticing him now. As though he hasn't been here constantly for days and days.

It feels like it's been forever.

"Are you still Kira in your dreams, I wonder?" L asks quietly, looking down at his friend and rival with something approaching affection. It is easy to forget, especially since Light seems to have forgotten it too, that this person has killed many people. That this person has polluted the name, the very nature of his justice.

If Light knows the answer to the quiet question, he isn't telling.

Realizing fully that it is a poor decision he is making, and a risk he should not take, L reaches over and smothes the hair from Light's forehead.

Then, turning away, he goes back to his computer, as Light slumbers on.


	14. Sting

Sting

Near's feet pound on the sidewalk. Matt holds his hand tighter and drags him forwards a few steps. Near didn't know it was possible for him to run this fast, but with Mello and Matt physically hauling him along, he swears he can hear wind rushing past. His lungs ache. He can't see. He hates this. He keeps running.

The seven boys chasing them are yelling and jeering. People on the street are just getting out of the way, shocked expressions, backing up and holding onto their bags tightly, unsure of how to react. Until someone yells,

"STOP! Police!"

Well thank fuck.

"Matt!" Mello, grabs him and drags him in the direction of the voice. Matt, in turn, pulls Near along with them, still by the firm hold on his hand. The officer is coming down the steps, badge out, looking furious. It's probably partially relief at being able to do something concrete, rather than chasing ghosts and shadows.

"Thank you," wheezes Mello, nearly crashing into him, staggering to a halt just behind him. Matt isn't sure how Mello negotiates the low concrete steps at such high speeds, but somehow he manages to not kill himself. Another man comes forwards and takes his arm to steady him. He looks concerned. Fatherly.

The boys that were chasing them have scattered into the crowd. Matt clutches a hand to his chest.

Near dives for the youngest of the police men and and ducks behind him. He's wearing his customary outfit. Matt and Mello had decided it was best for him to dress however he was comfortable, for today. They'd need for him to be at his sharpest.

"We-we," Matt points back in the direction they were coming from, "th-they were," purposefully choosing to speak English. None of the four men do, apparently, because they all look at each other in concern. This is good. This is according to plan.

Near looks up at Matsuda, and Matt thinks he looks genuinely terrified. He hopes he'll be alright.

Matt looks over his shoulder again, and reaches to check the zipper of his back to make sure it hasn't fallen open in the chase. One of the officers puts a firm, comforting hand on his shoulder, and ushers him solicitously back towards the building. The batcave.

He owes Hong and his friends a whole lot of cigarettes, and a nice bottle of tequila, if he can get his hands on one. Or sake. Maybe they'd prefer sake. Matt doesn't know what they drink here. Whatever it is, unless it's worth it's weight in gold, he'll buy it for them. The triumph as they come through the doors is immense.

So, breathing raggedly, they're all ushered into the front of the building. Yagami Sr goes for water, since Near is still clinging to Matsuda. Mello thinks he might be overdoing it a tad, but they haven't been thrown out. Yet. God bless police officers, wherever you go, they're predictable. All helpful and protective and so very exploitable.

Later, when L grills them about the plan from then on in, they're forced to acknowledge that the next sequence of events are only successful due to phenomenal good luck. With a complete lack of knowledge about inner protocols, they had just sort of decided to, well, play it by ear. Hope that the officers will get them somewhere comfortable.

That it's not going to happen is evident the moment they're through the doors. The massive security measures are not something they're going to be taken through lightly, just for the sake of a glass of water and a deep breath. Matt doesn't have to bother to hide the annoyance on his face. They've just been chased down by bullies, right? He's allowed to be angry. It'd probably look worse if he was trying to hide something.

Mello thinks he's going to panic. Further. The tasteful, shiny glass walls are closing in on him. He watches Matt, who takes his backpack off so he can sit. He watches Sighurd, who's standing smack in the middle of the doorway, watching the proceedings with bemusement. Not speaking, offering help or advice, or involvement.

Near tries to think of a way to stall for time, as the glass is put into his hand. They're settled into chairs, and Matsuda starts trying to get statements or descriptions or whatever, as Mello's eyes roam the room quickly. Scanning for something.

Anything.

_Just _at the point where they're going to have to go, where things are going to stop being natural and start being painfully obvious, here that anything comes, in the form of a blond, be-lipsticked idol, emerging from the elevator with a purse and a sunny smile. Misa is wearing a pink concoction, all lace and frippery, and Mello watches Matt watching her and remembers again that he really, really hates her.

Even though they haven't exchanged a single word.

Near, though, _Near, _has the presence of mind, as she walks past him, to gasp.

"Misamisa!"

She looks at him.

He looks up at her.

They all watch the pieces fit together in her eyes, as she takes in the big eyes and the shaking hands.

"Near! What's the matter? Are you okay? Are you hurt?" She's on him, mothering him, smothering him, and he doesn't object because this is good. The police officers are staring, open mouthed, as she fusses.

Matt looks over at Mello, and grins, and maybe Mello hates Misa just a little bit less now. For the whole 'trying to help Near' thing. And everything.

Matt lifts his hands to adjust his goggles, which he isn't wearing, and after smiling, momentarily looks back at Near and Misa.

"They attacked us." Near is glad he's supposed to be upset. It means he doesn't have to improvise what to say. He won't be expected to give a coherent reply that doesn't sound like it came out of a text book or strategical guide, which would ruin the whole illusion immensely. Instead, he opts for lapsing into silence.

"They were chasing us," Matt steps in for him, stepping closer and nodding, confirming what Near said, "I mean, we walked by and they were just all around us, and they said to give us their money,"

Mello cuts in, in his broken Japanese, possibly playing up the difficulty in speech a little more than he usually would, but it doesn't hurt to seem incompetent when you're trying to take advantage of someone. "and we were going to and everything, but they said we didn't have enough, so one of them hit me and we ran."

Matt and Near both nod.

"Where are you staying?" Misa asks.

Mello looks at Matt.

"I..." Matt thinks hard, and glances at his feet. Says 'ptarmigan' in English. Switches back to Japanese. "Don't know the word."

"Chief," Matsuda, "Light speaks English very well, doesn't he?"

_Shit, _thinks Mello. Aizawa, who was looking at him, frowns suddenly, and interjects,

"They seem better. They can probably go. And we don't want to disturb..." there's an unnaturally long pause, and Matt isn't sure what he means but he bets it's pretty important, he bet's it's something to do with the Kira investigation and he can't help but look curious because he wants to _know, _ "...Light's engaged, isn't he, at the moment?"

_Er._Matt and Mello glance at each other. This is not what they would call a promising development.

Saved by Misa again, though, she pouts and hurls her arms around Near. This only makes him look slightly more alarmed than he was to begin with, but she either fails to notices this or can't be bothered to connect it with anything that _she's _doing. Matt can't decide which.

"Get Misa's Light to come down. Misamisa wants to give Near a ride home. He shouldn't have to walk when he and his friends are so out of breath. Misa cannot drive all over the city, though." She gives Matt a kind of reproachful look. As though it is his fault he exists. As though he was probably the one who got Near into this trouble to begin with. Come to think of it, that's actually not all that far from the truth.

"He's my foster brother," Matt uses the same excuse as before. Only, this time, Near hears it and he grins at him, which is the first _real _expression Matt has ever seen on his face. Happy is a good look for Near.

Wow, this is all going really quickly.

Mello is a little more on top of things than Matt. He's listening to the huge man page this Light person, trying to think of a place they can stay that doesn't sound too much unlike ptarmigan, but that will also be a legitimate lodging and not an arctic bird.

Hostel, ptarmigan, they won't be able to tell the difference, right?

And the police detective is still looking at them funny. The old one is starting to as well, now. This just isn't good. They have nothing to reassure them with; in fact, their suspicions are incredibly well founded. True, even. Except for that they don't want to cause any harm, they just want to stay.

"We could get Watari," the younger man suggests to the 'chief,' and Mello hopes his face doesn't betray the fact that he really, really doesn't want them to get Watari.

Apparently, it does. Aizawa's hand closes firmly around Mello's arm. _Fuck. That's torn it, then.  
_

_Bing._

Several things happen simultaneously.

The doors to the elevator start to slide open. The chief takes two steps towards Matt, to get a hold of him. Matt dances away, and scoops his backpack off the floor, and clutches his backpack to his chest, as though it's something precious. Misa tightens her hug on Near, who makes a noise like an alarmed mouse might. Mello jerks to try to get out of Aizawa's hands.

A young, put together, confident looking young man steps out of the elevator. Mello takes in the handcuff around his wrist first. He follows the chain backwards with his eyes to the figure staying in the shadows.

The hunched shoulders, the shining, large eyes, the thumb in the mouth, the messy hair and rumpled clothing and barely visible bare feet.

_L._

Time freezes.


	15. Hysteria

Hysteria

_L._

Time freezes.

And then seems to snap back into fast-forwards, to make up for the lull. Like in that stupid movie Matt saw, with the fish, and he called horseshit on just about everything in that thing and spent the whole time sitting in the back with Mello trying to throw popcorn at Near and wishing Roger wouldn't come up with these stupid group activity nights in the first place or that he'd at least get them something decent to watch. Why is he thinking about this right now? Oh right, because it's true.

L's mouth drops open. Mello kicks the police officer as hard as he can in the shins and yells. Near starts squirming furiously to get out of Misa's arms. Matt dodges the chief again, and fumbles with the zipper of his backpack. Sighurd says something that they all miss.

Mello couldn't say later why he panicked. In fact, he'd deny furiously that it was panic at all. Planned resistance, he'd say, because he was being manhandled. In fact, he just started yanking and grappling furiously, trying to get away from someone with a considerable amount of training restraining people who are trying to get away.

L pushes Light forwards and steps out of the elevator, raising his hands. The door half closes on him, and makes an obnoxious 'bing' noise that makes Near jump and kick at Misa a little.

In the mean time, the chief has rushed at Matt again, who has sprung out of the way and kicked a chair into his path. The backpack opens, zipper tearing with an obnoxious sound, and everything scatters across the floor.

Near makes it out of Misa's arms, finally, and she rushes for Light, shouting in alarm, adding greatly to the mounting cacophony.

Mello shouts _again _and _bites _the detective's hand, and is finally let go. He falls flat on the floor and scrabbles away before he can be grabbed again.

Near _lunges _for a pile of books and papers, with a thin, black note book sticking out of them. No one would ever credit Near being able to move that quickly.

The chief gets Matt by the arms, pulling them behind his back, and shoves him down over the reception desk. Matt yells in surprise and pain as his ribs connect with the edge of the wood, and Mello throws himself onto the chief's back, trying to yank him off.

Motsuba and Aizawa go for Mello at once. He doesn't seem to notice their approached, in his haste to help Matt.

L finally manages to push out of the elevator, past Light and the hysterical Misa, who has her arms around his shoulders.

Near scrambles to his feet, book clutched in his hands.

L and Near lock eyes across the room. The last of the four detectives is reaching for Near, but watching Mello and Matt, who seem to be putting up a _hell _of a fight. Near has two point seven seconds before he's grabbed, he figures out, costing himself point three of that time. L draws himself up straight.

At the same instant, Near throws the Death Note, and L shouts, with all the considerable command and presence he can muster,

_"Stop!"_

He catches the book out of the air, one handed, and spends a good three seconds wondering where the low woman's voice is coming from, and why she's howling in laughter.

_Everyone_ stops.

Except the monster in the doorway, with tears of blood streaming down her metal cheeks. Sighurd simply can no longer _breathe._

Neither, it seems, can L, but for very different reasons.

He should probably say something.

He will. Eventually.

The thing has rotten wings.

What should he say?

What does he do?

"Everyone..."

No, he has nothing. He starts violently when a hand sets down on his shoulder, and looks over. It's Light, eyes warm and concerned. Light smiles at him, a little tentatively, since Light figures he's already pretty much got control of this situation and now just needs to untangle it, and L feels his heart beat a little faster. He focuses on Light's eyes, breathes once, and then turns to face the room.

"Gentlemen, you may release them. Mello and Matt are going to behave and come here right now. Near too. We will go upstairs."

L's posture eases into what it was again. He puts his hands in his pockets. The policemen release their holds on Mello, Matt, and Near, who look at combinations of the floor and each other, rather guiltily, he is pleased to note. As they should be. They were essentially brawling in his foyer. The only real question is... what were they doing in his foyer? And who is it that they brought with them? It goes against his every instinct to leave her here, but the look Near is giving him suggests that it is important he does so.

He is not sure he wants Light to know about this, until he knows more.

The elevator door closes, all of them jammed inside it, on Sighurd, still standing in the lobby, watching L with eyes he can't decipher.

Shinigami.

He'll have to get Watari to buy some apples.

By the time they have reached the main room of the investigation, bypassing the more serious security in light of the special circumstances, L's head has stopped reeling quite so much. He steps out of the elevator.

"Misa, I am going to have to ask you to remain behind. Please go about your daily routine." She opens her mouth to shriek in annoyance. He interrupts her before she can. "It is vital that it seems as though nothing has happened. Due to your fame, this disruption is conspicuous, and a risk. But if you maintain the difficult job of being the regular, public face of the investigation, you will save Light and us all from a grim fate."

He's pressed the 'down' button as he speaks. The door closes on the nodding actress, and he sighs in relief.

Then pads, barefoot, towards the sofas, dragging Light along by the chain.

Everyone looks at each other, and joins him. Even the adults feel slightly like chastised children, being sat down and given a bit of a talk. L tucks himself into an armchair, folding his knees to his chest, with the death note pressed there.

Near curls up in much the same position, and winds fingers in his hair. Matt settles down next to him, and sets a hand on his shoulder. This seems to make Near ease somewhat. Mello sits on the other side of Matt, posture clearly still aggressive. Fiercely protective. L bites his thumb and smiles, as Light pulls up a chair next to him.

"Thank you for bringing this to me."

The moment he says it, Mello feels something in him untwist. L isn't angry. L is grateful, if anything. He looks sideways at Matt, who glances back at him. And Mello can tell that he gets it. Suddenly, no matter how this turns out, the whole thing has very much been worth it.

None of them have ever really paused to think about how someone could win this much loyalty with only a few words and a very little bit of kindness over a great many children. But these words of praise already mean the world.

"You're welcome," says Near, calmly and simply. "Can they please all go?"

Of course there is immediately a chorus of protests, but the chief rises to his feet when L nods. The rest, as usual, follow his example. No matter what his rank may be, or what he may ask them to call him, or what they might go through, he will always be 'the chief.' As long as L has his support, he knows that he has all of them.

The men leave the room, leaving L, Light, Matt, Mello and Near, sitting in slightly awkward silence.

Now that they're here, the question, Matt realizes, is where to begin.

"Please," says Near, "read the rules on the inside of the cover, and above all else, do not let the person you are chained to touch the paper."

Mello and Matt glance at each other again. Near thinks that this Light person is Kira. Immediately, they both consider it. As they should have before, really. Mello feels guilty about that, but Matt forgives himself, since it's been a kind of busy few minutes.

He's probably the right age, of course, just as they estimated, and he could very well be attending school near here. Well, could have been, since he was now shackled to the detective, and that was another thing: if L is keeping him this close it means he needs to be supervised more than even cameras could do.

Yes, odds are that this is the person L believes to be Kira. And if L believes something to be true, the odds are overwhelming that this actually is the case. None of them doubt that in the slightest.

But, given the current look of surprise, and the utter lack of fear...

Light evidently is supposed to speak English.

"Il ne souvient pas," Matt murmurs, "Il a perdu ses reconnaisances de la note." He doesn't remember, it means, he's lost his memories of the note.

Mello nods, and presses his forehead to Matt's shoulder for a second. Breathe in, breathe out. Wait, while L reads, and thinks, and passes his judgement.

Ultimately, of course, he reaches the same conclusion that the three of them have.

They all wait for him to speak.

"I think everyone would feel much better if we could have some cake."


	16. Let Them Eat Cake

**Let them eat Cake.**

Mello swallows a bite of cheesecake, and wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, before glancing up at L.

"So." He finds it difficult to muster the courage to speak. If only he could just, you know, set this problem on fire and make it go away. Everything would be much easier. "I'm the one that found the thing. It fell on me, just kind of, you know, dropped. And I thought it was Near so I went and yelled at him, and he looked at it and said it was probably important. Then, later, Matt caught us reading it, but I'd have told him anyways because Matt,"

"Bullshit, you tried to hide it." This would be Matt, sounding irritated, but a little too tired to be angry.

"I'd have told him anyways _eventually _because Matt is my best friend."

At Mello's correction, Matt quiets, suitably mollified. It makes it easier for him to remind himself it's not genuine irritation, it's the fact that combined with the airplane, the jetlag, the surveillance of the batcave, the early morning library research and now the Great and Glorious Plan (as Mello christened it while they were hatching it, at two am) he has had very, very little sleep over the past... how long has it been since the death note fell? Just over a week?

"And Matt knew about—oh." Mello trails off. He totally wasn't supposed to reveal that, was he?

L looks at him. He feels like he's looking straight into his soul, and wonders kind of nervously if there's any point in lying or saying nothing because he doesn't want Matt to get into trouble, but L also knows absolutely everything _ever._

Matt rescues him.

"Go on."

"Matt has been, um. HackingRoger'scomputer so when he saw... he knew shinigmai were important in the Kira case so we should probably take it seriously. So then Sighurd showed up when we tried to write 'Kira' in it. I don't think I would have if I'd really thought it worked."

Not really. Not even for Kira. Especially not now, looking at Yagami Light. Mello needs L to understand this, and L can tell it's important to him, so for the time being, he nods. Seeing forgiveness in L's eyes is practically a religious experience for Mello, and he stops the story and picks up his fork and cheesecake to have something to do with his hands, completely overwhelmed, while Near picks up the thread of the story.

"It fast became evident that not only was this a serious matter, but that Roger was unwilling to accept evidence of something outside of his own personal understanding of the universe, no matter how compelling. We decided it was imperative to deliver the information, and subsequently left Wammy's. After making our way to Japan, we took up residence in a youth hostel, and using hotel and delivery company records, as well as a limited profile of the Kira-suspect, were able to approximately track your movements."

He's staring straight ahead, fingers pulling absently at his hair. Light can't help but notice the similarities between the boy and the detective. Especially now with the huge dark circles under Near's eyes, remnants of their week from hell.

"In short, we found this building, and decided the likelihood was high that it was somehow related to events. For the past five and a half days we have been conducting rudimentary surveillance of the front entrance in an attempt to infiltrate and deliver the notebook."

"So we got these guys to chase us so the police would help. And you know the rest," adds Mello, cheerfully, "so that's okay."

L is looking at Matt. Who Mello suddenly realizes is being conspicuously silent.

"Why are you lying, Matt?" asks L, simply.

Matt swallows, and looks suddenly unbearably miserable, and Mello's eyes open wide. He... actually kind of wants to yell at L. And Matt, for whatever he's not telling them.

"I do not send my notes to Roger. Just an approximate update of me whereabouts and wellbeing."

Oh. _Oh. _But Near doesn't look surprised at _all _and Matt is starting to talk, so Mello makes up his mind to listen. For once. Since Matt would kill him if he tried to set him on fire.

"Well. Well, it's kind of."

This isn't easy.

"The thing is we all worry about you when you're gone. And you only write to Roger, and a lot of the time he doesn't tell us a thing. And sometimes we don't even know what cases you're on and the thing with Kira was just so _dangerous, _and everyone was worried, it wasn't just me."

L nods, calmly. Interrupting him might disrupt the answer.

"So, so I decided it wouldn't hurt, you know, to kind of. Check. To make sure things were going okay. And I don't think anyone else would be able to, to, get in, honest. I even put up extra... around the hole I used. Except it wasn't really a hole it was sort of like, like I don't know, water seeping through something so I didn't know everything and I didn't look at much, just some basic case notes to..."

Mello's jaw has dropped open. So has Light's. But of the two of them, Mello's the one who yells first.

"You _hacked into L's computer?_ You're good enough to _do that?__"_

Matt is looking at L. His cheeks are bright red. Most of all, he wishes he had his goggles. Or, you know, that he could disappear. He figures the goggles are probably a behavioral crutch or something like that.

"Well, we're all good, and you and Near are better at the whole, you know, almost all of it, and even if we're not all good at everything nearly as much as you, we're all good at something. I... I don't know. I just do computers. It's not enough for me to ever be... in the running, or anything. But I'm best at that."

L kills the ensuing silence, since there is no point in tormenting Matt. Mello and Near are too busy thinking about what he's said, and Light is just trying to patch together who these children are and how they seem to know L. Also, he is more tactful than to intrude into this conversation, since L is having to coax it along delicately as it is.

"I am not angry, Matt. You will just show me how to fix it so that it does not happen again. It makes me very happy to think that some of you care about me."

"Don't be stupid," Mello snorts, face hot and terror and exhaustion making him irritable, "we'd all die for you."

"Evidence supports Mello," suggests Near, looking at L's feet as though they're the most interesting thing in the world, "considering we made it here from Japan."

Matt nods, earnestly. "Because you could have died."

"You might need to arrest me for theft, unfortunately," Near admits sadly, "for credit card theft and fraud and exploitation of teddy bears."

"No," says Mello, "Near, he's not going to arrest you. You were so cool. And you weren't exploiting teddy bears, you were acknowledging your own natural teddy bear factor and, um, utilizing opportunities to the fullest and using your entire potential. And Matt..." he shoves him with his elbow, "Took care of us and got us here."

Matt looks up and meets L's eyes, briefly.

"You really could have died, you know."

L smiles. It's softer than Light has ever seen before, so he swallows all his questions about what the book is, and who these children are, and decides that they can wait.

"I know. But I won't, Matt."

Near's eyes close. Light finally speaks.

"They look like they could all use a good night's sleep."

Near's eyes flick open, and Matt looks wistful. Mello blinks like the idea is absolutely foreign, and L decides that Yagami Light is very, very right about this. For these three, the fight is over.

With proof of Light's guilt in his hands, his own is just beginning, but he can't rest that on their shoulders.

"I'll show you to spare rooms then."

"Please," says Mello. Matt doesn't think he's ever heard Mello ask for anything politely, ever. It makes him laugh for some reason, which makes Near smile at him. Matt notices the dark circles under his eyes, and is struck again by how much he looks like L.

So a few minutes later, Matt stands in the doorway of his new, temporary room, and looks around it. It's empty, tasteful, bland. Nothing like the hostel, with its bright walls. Sort of like Wammy's, but crossed with a hotel. The bed looks blissfully comfortable.

He closes the door, strips down to his boxers and without bothering to take off his socks, climbs in. After the past week, it feels like lying on a cloud.

After the past week, it feels pretty empty without someone curled up next to him. He starfishes his arms and legs out, trying to get used to the sensation.

Tired satisfaction fills him.

They did it.

His eyes close, and he practically instantly, he sleeps.

Near's room is next. Even seeing it is a comfort.

The bed is plain. The window has the right colour of blinds. There is a desk and a chair, and shelves. They don't have anything on them, but the quiet neutrality wraps around him like a hug, and he breathes properly for the first time all week.

This is normal. This is routine. This is his frame of reference.

In the morning, he will talk to L more about Yagami Light, and what is to be done with him. Because now that he is here, and can see and here and think, he knows that Yagami Light has become to L what the plastic superman he's taken to keeping in his pocket is to Near. Yagami Light is L's reference, now, and without him, he would suffer.

Near will talk to him about it.

In the morning.

Mello, last but not least, hates his room instantly. There are no good hiding places, and he has nothing to hide in the mediocre ones. The space is impersonal and empty, and it just sucks. He lies down in the dark, and he can't hear the sound of Matt breathing.

He actually can't fall asleep. He can't keep his eyes open, and he can't fall asleep.

There's only one solution.

Matt jolts upright as Mello's weight tips the bed, looks down at him, kicks him in the shin half heartedly, closes his eyes and falls back to sleep. Mello puts his face in the pillow, breathes in, and then out, and in, and is asleep on the exhale.

Tired, and triumphant.


	17. Morning

**Morning.**

If Matt and Mello have slept in some, Near supposes he can forgive him. His mind is a whirl, and he's become accustomed to their schedule, so he wakes up at the respectable hour of eight am, and pads out to the main hallway, and the central room where L met with them all last night.

The detective is alone. He has the handcuff off his wrist. Near assumes that he must have realized that Yagami didn't have access to a death note, and subsequently no longer needed to be watched quite so urgently.

The camera feeds were on in one of the monitors on the desk. Near could see an empty bed, and Matt and Mello sprawled next to each other, and his own room, and Yagami Light sleeping peacefully.

"Good morning Near," L murmurs, as Near comes up behind him. He slides a bowl of cherries in Near's direction, and doesn't look away from the monitor. Watching Light sleep.

"You know," Near picks up a cherry, and inspects it, "the murders were not the real problem with Kira."

L says nothing, but looks at him. Near doesn't tear his eyes off the cherry.

"The issue, as I understand it, is not the morality of capital punishment. That is a debate which each country must hold privately. The problem was the destabilization of the criminal justice system. Legal process and procedure has evolved over millennia, and espoused values of fairness and neutrality, of impartiality and openness. It has come under criticism, but in that way, I see it like democracy. It may be a terrible system, but it's better than all those other forms of government."

L quirks just a bit of a smile. Near continues.

"The rulings of justice cannot be put into the hands of just one person. A criminal has the right to be tried by a jury of their peers, and adjudicated by a learned professional, who is appointed by a democratically elected government. Social pressures, accepted morality, situational deterrence of police and security, and general deterrence of the threat of prison keep the crime rates as low as possible."

Near bites off one of the cherries, chews for a moment, then delicately spits the pit into the palm of his hand.

"And traditionally, the death penalty has not been an effective threat. In the United States, Louisiana imposes the death penalty for the broadest spectrum of offences, and uses it the most frequently. It has one of the highest murder rates in the country. Given the recession of crime rates in Japan in the last few months, it is safe to say that people are not simply living aware of the consequences of their actions; they are living in fear."

L takes his thumb out of his mouth, and slides a plate over to Near, who deposits the cherry pit on it. There are five or six of the things adorning it already. Near takes another cherry.

"Because Kira is not a man committing a crime. Kira is a force, a supernatural one, stepping outside of the system we, as mankind, have created. He is doing what we tolerate ourselves to do, only without permission."

He bites the new cherry. Thinks as he eats, and spits the seed out again.

"Kira. Without the power, he is but a pawn. He is an innocent. When people see that, their fear will turn to anger, and he will be as good as crucified. If I were his legal council, I would suggest raising a defense of... of a sort of automatism, now that he has awoken from that particular dream."

Seed on the plate. Red pieces of the flesh of the fruit clinging to the pit. L picks up a cherry stem in puts it in his mouth.

"But there is no legal precedent for possession in the world court. The judges and jurors alike will cave under massive political and social pressure. A fair trial will be next to impossible, and even if he is acquitted, he will be killed in the streets."

He sees L's mouth working.

"I do not think that justice can really be served."

L pulls the cherry stem out of his mouth. It's tied neatly in a knot. Near asks, and perhaps you could overlook the hint of a smirk, if you didn't know him,

"Can Yagami do that?"

L glances up at him sharply. Near just smiles, and takes another cherry.

**AN: **As this fic draws to a close, I invite those of you who have followed along, and who enjoy my work, to mosey on over to my latest effort. a V for Vendetta-Death Note crossover. It is not quite a sequel to this: although I suppose there's nothing to say it couldn't be. Except this ends on a sort of happily ever after note, and _Alphabet _is a very, very dark fic. Japan is flooded with the refugees from America and England. Wammy's house was destroyed, Watari died, but L is still the three best detectives in the world. Only, operating on more modest means, and having to take care of himself. He accepts the challenge of getting into England, and, taking Mello, Matt and Near with him (hampered by the new, uni-racial, pseudo-Orwellian society has no room for him.) Of course, mere days after the investigation begins, someone demolishes Madam Justice- or rather, the Old Bailey. L now has a very, very complicated situation on his hands, and an ethical dilemma.

And really? Things only go from bad to worse.


	18. Epilogue

**Epilogue.**

"Oh gross, look," says Mello happily, and points at the window on the fifth floor. "Ew, what are they doing?" Matt looks up, and adjusts his backpack on his shoulders.

"I think it's good," he says, softly, "I mean. L's happy, right? Don't point, Mello, what if he looks down and sees us?"

Near smiles to himself, still standing on the bottom step.

"Your taxi will be here in a moment."

Mello glances away from the window, and over at Near.

"You're sure you won't come with us, huh?"

Near just nods. Matt can't blame him. The way he looked, sitting in the computer chair next to L, the two of them eating sweets together, L's hand in his mouth and Near's hand in his hair... this was the way it was supposed to be.

"You're going to make a good L, Near. When it happens."

Mello nods agreement. He can't be quite as glad for him as Matt is, because he competed for it for so long... but he can't exactly be sorry, either. He can see the taxi coming down the street. It's probably theirs, his and Matt's. It'll take them to the airport. Watari thinks they're going back to Wammy's house.

"Hey Matt," Mello says, "have you ever been to Las Vegas?"

Near bites his lip to hide a smile. Matt glances over at Mello, and gives him a grin. Watari thinks they're going back to Wammy's house, but on the way out, L slipped a credit card into his pocket while they hugged goodbye.

"You're so fucking typical, Mello."

The taxi cab pulls up behind them. Near bites his lip a little harder, and looks at the ground. He's surprised, doesn't see it coming, when Mello pulls him into a fierce hug.

"We'll phone," he says, "and we'll write and if you need any help with anything, I'll light it on fire and Matt will hack into it because Matt is the hacking _God,"_

"Or if you just need to talk," Matt says, a little more reasonably, "and we'll come visit on your birthday too, and as soon as I figure it out I'll get you a number where you can reach us..."

Mello lets Near go, and Matt grabs him and hugs him too.

"Take care of yourself. And take care of L, too, I don't think he eats anything real or _ever _sleeps."

The taxi honks, and Near nods, absently.

"Well." Mello grins, and takes a step towards it. "Bye."

Matt, holding back a moment longer, listens to Mello opening the car door and explaining that they're going to the airport and just one more second.

"Bye Near."

Near looks down at Matt's feet, and then up at him. He smiles once, and turns around to walk back inside, because otherwise Matt is never going to move and there's a very good chance they'll miss their flight.

Matt races down the lasts steps, and jumps into the taxi next to Mello. The two of them look at each other, and grin. Like they've grown up, and suddenly opened their eyes to find the entire world at their fingertips. There's a particular shine to knowing that the possibilities of the world are endless.

The taxi cab pulls away from the batcave. Near rides the elevator back up, holding the superman in his pocket, ready to begin what amounts to a new life. Sighurd stands next to him, hand on his shoulder, ready to protect him in Matt's stead. On the fifth floor, L Lawliet tells Yagami Light his real name.

I'd say it was the end, but really, it's pretty much just the beginning.


End file.
